ICONES FILICUM SINICARUM 
PLATE 221 
ADIANTUM BONATIANUM Brause 
ADIANTACE 
ADIANTUM BONATIANUM Brause in Hedwigia 54: 206 t. 4, k. 1914; C. Chr. Ind. Fil. Suppl. II. 1. 
1916; Hand-Mzt. Symb. Sin. 6: 39. 1929; Ching in Sunyatsenia 6: 13. 1941; in Acta Phytotax. Sinica 
6: 337. 1957. 
Adiantum venustum (non Don) Christ in Bull. Acad. Géogr. Bot. Mans. 1906: 131; C. Chr. Hort. Gotheb. 
1: 92. 1924. 
Rhizome slender, wide-creeping, clothed especially at the growing tip in dense, dark brown, linear- 
subulate scales intermixed with long fine hairs; fronds distichous, 1-3 cm apart, erect, stipe 25-30 cm long, 
2 mm thick, chestnut-red, highly polished, terete, copiously clothed near the base with easily abraded, 
spreading atro-brown, fine, setose, articulate, long hairs, becoming glabrous upwards, lamina ample, with 
widely separated pinnae, 25-35 cm long and as broad, deltoid-ovate with blunt apex, quadri-pinnate; pinnae 
6-8 pairs, alternate, oblique, the lower ones 6-10 cm apart, 13-19 cm long, 6-9 cm broad, oblong-ovate with 
bluntish apex, long-petiolate, tripinnate; the pinnules from the first order onwards in all pinnae are strongly 
anadromously branched, i.e. the anterior basal pinnule about 1 cm away from the rachis, while the pos- 
terior basal one about 34 cm away from the rachis; pinnules of the Ist. order in the basal pinnae 6-7 pairs 
under the simply pinnate short blunt apex, 45 cm long, 3 cm broad, oblong-ovate, petiolulate, again bi- 
pinnate under the simply pinnate and blunt apex, oblique, but the anterior basal one strongly deflexed and 
overlapping the rachis; pinnules of the 2nd. order 4-5-jugate, the lower 2-3 pairs again pinnate with 35 
ultimate pinnules, which are contiguous, 7-10 mm each way, cuneate-flabellate, all petiolulate (petiolule 24 
mm long), rounded on the outer margin and provided with numerous broadly deltoid teeth ended in 
spreading, cartilaginous long aristate spines, of which some often in a curious manner tip to the right, while 
others to the left, or sometimes two together; texture thin herbaceous, dry green, faintly bluish-green 
beneath, glabrous; vezns fine, distinct, one to each tooth; sori small, as a rule 1-2 (occasionally 3) to each 
ultimate pinnule, indusium orbicular-reniform, or reniform, membranaceous, gray, persistent and remains 
flat. 
Type from Tchong Shan, Tali. In distribution this distinct but heretofore much confused species is 
confined to Southwest China: Southern Szechuan, Sikang and N.W. Yunnan, eastwards to Kunming, where 
it is a common fern under evergreen forest in Sih-shan, west of the city. From A. venustum Don this 
species can be easily distinguished by the presence at the basal part of stipe of the copious spreading long 
reddish setaceous hairs to be easily abraded, the much more ample fronds and the characteristically aristate 
serrature. 
Plate 221. 1. Habit sketch (natural size). 2-3. Fertile pinnae, showing sori and characteristic teeth ( X Ze he 
Sterile pinnae, showing peculiar type of serrature (X 4). 5. Scale from the rhizome (X 30). 6. Hairs from the 
base of stipe (X 30). 7-8. Sporangium with spores (xX 100). 
